The Structure of Proteins

Proteins play a fundamental role in biology and their structure and dynamics provide a key perspective on their function. This course aims to provide an introduction to those with an interest in developing an understanding on how the available proteins structures can be used to gain a better understanding of their function and how it could be applied to drug discovery and optimization. After an introduction to amino acids as the building blocks of proteins, we discuss the different levels at which protein structure can be analyzed, and the experimental and modeling techniques that can be used to obtain tem. We show the importance of computational molecular modeling methods for extracting information from the protein structure. We carry out a survey of different protein classification schemes and carry out a survey of the structure of major classes of therapeutic proteins and drug targets. Finally we discuss the elements that govern protein interactions with other proteins and small molecules. We summarily describe the main techniques to analyze the motion of proteins.

Goals and Objectives:

• Develop an understanding of how protein structure influences its function
• Become familiar with how structural biology can be used in drug discovery.
• Practice the use of common visualization tools for structural biology.
• Learn basic techniques in molecular modeling useful in structural biology